I Library of Congress. 1 



P 

1 Ch^p 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.,-'.'!*! 

^lll§ 9—167 -V.V 



I 



1 



♦ 



/ 




LETTER 

— TO 

SAMUEL McAFEE DUNCAN, Esq., 

Nicholas ville, Kentucky, 
from 

/ 

WILLIAM BROWN. 



December 16, 1882. 



Thomas McGill & Co., Law Printers, Washington, D, C. 

*1 



9472 



x 



/ 



Washington City, December 16th, 1882. 
My Dear Sir: A day or two since, looking through a 
manuscript copy of my mother's poems, (the originals, you 
remember, I showed you the last time I was at home,) I 
noticed the one I copy and send to you, because existing 
circumstances bring the picture she drew fifty-six years ago 
vividly to my mind at the present time. I send you not 
only the poem, but a copy of the little preface she wrote 
to it- 

" PREFACE. 

"The following lines were suggested to my imagination 
while walking the streets of Nicholasville with a gentleman 
one moonlight night. The moon was shining in all her 
splendor just over the jail, which is shaded by a number of 
beautiful locust trees. 

"September 8, 1826. 

" POEM. 

" Hail, lovely scene ! on which I gaze 
With feelings not to be defined ; 
As lost in jSTature's wondrous maze 
Are all the workings of my mind. 

" Oh ! where shall I the language learn, 
Its mingled beauties, to declare? 
As those bright orbs in glory burn, 
Yet shed the mildest radiance there. 

"There may the zephyrs gently blow, 
Ere cold winds are fiercely blowing; 
There may those locusts love to grow. 
Fragrant flowers and shade bestowing. 

t; And may the rays of yon bright moon 
Be shed each night in that dark prison 
To cheer that victim's awf al doom. 
Whose hopes have set, tho 5 scarcely risen." 



2 



As a metrical composition this may not be perfect. 
It was written by my mother when a young lady, seven 
years before she married my father. When we think of 
how remote Kentucky was, comparatively, from civiliza- 
tion or high culture in 1826, and that she was a country 
girl, who had never been fifty miles from her birth-place, 
the daughter of a brave, rugged old soldier of the Revolu- 
tion, who for seven long years had answered to the bugle 
calls of Marion and of Horry in the forests and swamps of 
the Carolinas, the production is one that shows real merit 
of high order. Alas! little did this intellectual, refined, 
tender-hearted, benevolent, Christian woman ever dream 
that her only grandson would be confined in the jail in 
that very town for no offense but a manly effort to protect his 
person from a cruel, unlawful assault— a thing every one is 
justified in doing in the eyes of God and man alike. My. 
family have done much for our county and our town. Of 
our churches there, two were built entirely by my father and 
my brother, and all of them, without regard to denomina- 
tion, have had all the aid they ever asked us to bestow. 
The Catholic Church stands on ground donated by my 
brother, and which was a part of my father's domain sixty- 
five years ago. I contributed to that building myself all 
I was requested to give. 

^ I have, as you know, no creed, and no orthodox Christian 
faith; yet I have a profound respect for the Catholic 
Church. It is contemporaneous with the civilization of our 
race. It has done many wrongs ; committed many errors ; 
not so much from the teachings of the church itself as the 
wickedness of some of those who professed its creed ; for 
no man's nature was ever yet changed by his religion. As 
he was born, so will he live, and so will he die. The laws 
of heredity are immutable, and impressions, mental and 
physical, made even in the womb, follow us to the grave. 
" There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew* them 
how we will." 



3 



I am led from my subject now because I know your in- 
tense dislike of the Catholics. This is wrong in you. 
You should rise above all prejudice, religious or political. 
You enslave your own mind when you attempt to put 
shackles on the thoughts of your neighbors. Those things 
you condemn had their origin in remote antiquity ; and, 
much as it may be disputed, it is true that the origin of 
Christianity must be sought not in Judea, nor among the 
Jews, but far in Eastern India, beneath the shadows of the 
Himalaya Mountains ; in the very cradle of the Lido-Ger- 
manic race, from whence our forefathers came. The Afri- 
can continent was not peopled by the black race alone. The 
" Shepherd Kings,' 5 who defeated the dark-skinned Semitic 
race in the valley of the Mle, and ruled Egypt many centu- 
ries, took with them the seeds of the religion of the Bible 
they had learned in their mountain home in India. They were 
a tall, hardy race, as the tombs of Egypt show, with white 
skins and long blonde hair, and were a branch of the great 
Aryan nation, to which the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, 
the German, the Englishman, the American, owes his ori- 
gin. From these people the Jews got their religion. The 
Jews never originated it. England is the child of Germany 
and Scandinavia, by race, religion, law, and customs, just 
as she is the mother of our own mighty nation. It is 
matter of pride to all of Teutonic lineage to feel that in 
conquering India and Egypt the proud Anglo-Saxon sim- 
ply repossessed himself of the homes and graves of his an- 
cestors and his kindred. The Jews were as distinctively an 
African tribe as the Ethiopians. They never were, at any 
time in history, a free people. It does not seem they ever 
can be. Like the American Indians, they cannot assimi- 
late in faith and customs to the stronger civilizations they 
have encountered, and like those strange people, the Gyp- 
sies, they live as strangers in strange lands. When you 
condemn the Catholic creed you destroy the foundation 
on which your own faith rests. I respect the liberality 



4 



of your church, and join you in admiration of the great 
intellect of Alexander Campbell. Scotland has given 
birth to many great men, (jour own name shows your 
Scottish origin ;) but to very few of more original powers 
of thought than to Mr. Campbell, who was the founder of 
your church. By the way, you are so fond of biography, 
I wish to ask if you know he was closely related to the 
poet Campbell, the immortal author of the " Pleasures of 
Hope;" that one of the family was District Attorney in 
Virginia during the Presidency of Washington, » a man 
of rare and uncommon eloquence," who died in the year 
1795; and that Kobert Campbell, a brother of the poet, 
settled in Virginia and married a daughter of Patrick 
Henry, the greatest orator of the Revolution ? To the 
Catholics again. Who but a great patriotic Catholic soldier 
like General Eosecrans would have thought of putting in 
his official report of the battle of Stone Kiver the senti- 
ment, "Non nobis! Dornine, non nobis. Sed nomine 
tuo da gloriam." Remember that it is the great mother 
church of the Christian world, which for sixteen centuries 
before the Reformation kept alive the name and teachings 
of Christ, and preserved for us all we know of what is 
called classical literature. But for the Catholics, their priests 
and monks, their education, their preservation of ancient 
records and placing in readable shape the traditions of those 
who could not write, there would not be a Bible or a Testa- 
ment on earth to-day. The writings of Homer and of 
Virgil, of Xenophon and of Tacitus, of Moses and St. Paul, 
the teachings of Christ and His followers, would be as dead 
to the world as the names of the Mound-builders, or the 
carpenters who worked on the Ark. Our East Indian fore- 
fathers were Buddhists, as are their descendants to this day ; 
and Buddhism is the corner-stone of Christianity. You 
can see it all through the Bible. George Borrow, the 
learned author of "Lavengro" and " The Romany Rye," 
says : " Popery is the great lie of the world— a source from 



which more miser}- and social degradation have flowed 
upon the human race than from all the other sources from 
which those evils come. It is the oldest of all superstitions ; 
and though in Europe it assumes the name of Christianity, 
it existed and flourished amid the Himalayan hills at least 
two thousand years before the real Christ was born in Beth- 
lehem of Judea; in a word, it is Buddhism ; and let those who 
may be disposed to doubt this assertion compare the Popery 
of Rome and the superstitious practices of its followers with 
the doings of the priests who surround the Grand Lama, 
and the mouihings, bellowings, tu miners round, and, above 
all, the penances of the followers of Buddha with those of 
Roman devotees." In spite of Mr. Borrow's great learn- 
ing, and assertion (elsewhere) that he is no bigot, he con- 
victed himself with his own language as being one of the 
first water. You remember Moore's saying, " The mind 
of a bigot is like the iris in a cat's eye — the more light you 
throw on it the more it contracts." Blind in his faith and 
devotion to the Church of England, he could see no beauty 
in that of Rome. Like most of those who are bigoted anti- 
Catholics, he forgets that a tree can bear neither flowers 
nor fruit without a root. He forgets that without the ex- 
istence, first, of the Catholic Church there could have been 
no Protestant churches. The author of the so-called Refor- 
mation, Martin Luther, was a great man. A Catholic and 
a priest, he loved good things, as all sensible people do. 
He is the author of the sentiment: 

"Who loves not woman, wine, and song, 
Shall remain a fool his life long." 

He was a jolly, brave soul. To show that religious 
bigotry is always the same, regardless of faith, look at the 
history of Henry VIII, his daughters — " bloody Mary " 
and Elizabeth — and James I. A set of more accomplished, 
wicked, infernal scoundrels never lived. Bad as was the 
Napoleonic pack of thieves and prostitutes, who were a 
curse to France and the world for so many years, Henry 



6 



VIII and his descendants were worse; yet more than 
Luther did he do for the Protestant faith. The murderers 
of Anna Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Queen of Scots, 
of Essex, and Walter Raleigh ought all to have perished 
on the same block. The foundations of the Church of 
England were laid with the blood of thousands of victims 
of persecution. - The blood of the martyr is the seed of the 
Church." Diabolical doctrine. The usages and tenets of 
the Catholics you condemn are the surviving remains of 
the oldest faith on the globe; just as the gar among fish, 
and the kangaroo and opossum among animals, are survi- 
vors of types of creation that passed from earth ages ago. 
I heard with pleasure Mr. Beecher's lecture on « Evolu- 
tion " here, a few evenings since. I agree entirely with 
this great thinker in the major part of his conclusions. 
There is not a doubt in my mind of the truth that the 
Bible, as he says, was written by many different men at 
many different periods of time ; and it shows for itself that 
its authors were of different nationalities, and the book 
put in its present shape for convenience. Take the book 
of "Esther" for instance. The name of God, or any allu- 
sion to His existence, cannot be found in it. Evidently 
written by a Jew. Take the book of " Ruth," the prettiest 
little gem in the Bible. Its four short chapters end in a 
way that show part of the work is lost; and it bears in- 
trinsic evidence that it was written by a lawyer of fine 
imagination and sentiment, who had a vivid conception of 
the duties that kinsmen and families allied by blood or 
marriage owe to each other. The delicacy of thought ex- 
pressed in this beautiful work makes me think it was writ- 
ten by a Greek learned in the laws and habits of the Jew- 
ish people. But I have more faith in some things than Mr. 
Beecher expresses. He stated that God was an hypothesis, 
•to be assumed, and His existence to be hypothetically 
reasoned out as we do problems in astronomy, and in 
calculating distances we are from objects we see but can- 



7 



not reach. The recent transit of Venus was not an as- 
tronomical hypothesis, but a fact ; the forecoming of which 
men of science knew more about than did the " wise men 
of the East " of the holy birth of the child in the man- 
ger. God is no hypothesis to my mind, but an eternal 
reality. I believe with Kant and Emerson that all 
is eternal ; has ever been and ever will be ; forms 
changed, but nothing destroyed ; that no such thing 
as time exists; that what we mean by that conven- 
tional or relative expression is nothing more than a 
subjective state of the mind or mode of thought. As for 
me, I see nothing, touch nothing, hear no sound, but what 
I am as sensible of the existence of an Almighty God as 
though, like Moses, I saw him in the " burning bush." I 
see him in all Nature, in every moment of my life, and 
manifested in thousands of forms which Moses never had 
the pleasure to behold. Neither do I behold the blood- 
thirsty, revengful God of the Jews, but the benign God 
of the Christians. The Egypt Moses saw and wrote of 
of is not the Egypt of to-day. Could the old man come 
back and hear the click of the telegraph sending tidings 
beneath the seas to all the world ; see speeding up the val- 
ley of the Nile (whose waters he is accused of having turned 
into blood) an express train flying through the air on its 
iron path with tire and smoke like a meteor through space ; 
could he have seen the iron-clads of our brave motherland 
bombard Alexandria — the namesake of him who wept be- 
cause there were no more worlds to conquer; and could 
he have seen in the same desert where he slew the Egyp- 
tian the same sun that shone on him, shine on the British 
army, equipped in all the panoply of modern warfare — he 
could have realized miracles worth performing ; by the side 
of which, as he gazed upon his Saxon masters, the thought of 
his little miracles of flies, frogs, and lice would have made him 
pray God to " let thy servant depart in peace." Has it never 
struck you with surprise that the only evidence on earth. 



other than that of inference, that Christ ever was in Egypt, is 
to be found in Matthew, chapter 2. No other writer men- 
tions such an occurrence. In chapter 1, Acts of the Apostles, 
Paul writes «the former treatise have I made,&c." What 
treatise was this ? Evidently something he had written « of 
all that Jesus began both to do and teach," and which unfor- 
tunately has been lost to the world. Yet I believe that 
Christ was in Egypt, and there learned his philosophy; and 
I have always doubted if there was one drop of blood of 
the Jewish race in his veins. I do not believe his mother 
was of the Semitic race; nor do I believe his lather was a 
Ghost or a God, or that any such thing as a Ghost, holy or 
unholy, ever existed, or that any ghost or god ever copu- 
lated with a human female. This superstition was very 
common among the ancients. Take the cases of Komulus 
and Remus, Alexander the Great and Plato. There is just 
as much evidence of their being begotten by a god from 
a woman as that Christ was so begotten. Bead Arnold's 
"Light of Asia." You will see how divine (?) was the 
birth of Buddha, and where half of the Ten Commandments 
came from that are attributed to Moses, who was an Egyp- 
tian priest named "Mesu," and died many centuries^be- 
fore the Pentateuch was written. He could not have writ- 
ten the account of his own death and burial. You have 
my copy of -Stanley's Lives of the Philosophers;" you 
will see there that Democritus and Plato were in Egypt as 
students of philosophy long before Matthew says Christ 
was taken there. Read the account given of the divine 
origin of Plato, (which is a nickname,) and you must con- 
clude that those who wrote of the miraculous birth of 
Christ had the legend of Plato's birth before them ; for, fact 
tor fact, and almost word for word, the accounts are the 
same. All human beings; all life, animate and inanimate, 
are of divine origin; and your birth, your physical and 
mental structure are as miraculous as Christ's was. How 
it all came about we know not, will not know this side the 



9 



grave ; and if we know then, is now a matter of hope and 
faith, not of knowledge. People do right in worshiping 
the character of Christ and obeying his teachings. But 
the most annoying thing to me in the New Testament is 
the effort made by its writers to trace the pedigree of Christ 
back to David through his supposed father's side, Joseph, 
when the declaration is positive that Mary was a pregnant 
woman when she espoused Joseph, and that there was no 
sexual communion between them until after this child was 
born. 

Besides, it can be no honor to the Saviour of the world, 
the greatest of all moral teachers, who died a martyr to 
truth and liberty, to have his lineage traced back to the 
Jew David, who was an adulterer, a murderer, a thief, and 
a highwayman — the Dick Turpin of his day. It is good 
for the world that when this old villain was "cherished" by 
the passionate Shulamite prostitute the "King knew her 
not." It is a pity he ever "knew " Uriah's wife, who gave 
birth to Solomon, the progenitor of Mormonism. I can- 
not believe that any one like Christ ever came from a 
Semitic race, and the hatred the Jews have always shown 
for him convinces me there was no Jewish blood in him. 
Who his mother Mary was is unknown. The names of 
her parents are unknown. When or where she was born 
or died, or was buried, is unknown. Her means of liveli- 
hood are unknown. Her nationality is unknown. Nowhere 
is it asserted that she was a Jeivess. Birth in Palestine no 
more made her a Jewess than birth here makes the negro 
a Caucasian. The Romans and their legionaries, for years 
before Christ's birth, had made such serfs of the Jews, and 
so many strange nationalities had intruded on their pro- 
vincialism, that it is difficult to trace any genealogy of that 
day in Palestine. The Jews w T ere a most lascivious people, 
if the Bible records be true; and it is easy to imagine the 
mingling of Roman soldiers, Hushed with conquest and 
plunder, among the Jewish maidens. I shall forever be- 
2 



10 



and tha you and I have in our veins the same Indo-Ger 
Jj™ Wood that flowed in his. None of the illustrations 

asi n « J n 7 ^ Jew5sh of fece > but th « Cau- 
casus or the Greek. All armies beget children wherever 

thej occupy or conquer a country, and the followers of the 

SerfL 6 ?^ SCrUp,e8 ab ° Ut ri S hts of P^perty or 

he cbast.ty of women. Are you aware that before Christ 
was born the Roman army, under « Pompey the Great " 
after overrunning Asia and marching distances no army 
ever marched before or since, on their way home entered 
Jerusa era ? With thpm *f „„, , ™ 

Pamnfnii , ' 86 ' were th °usands of 

camp-followers, male and female, who raised with the 
races there as did others before and after them. Florus 

«tS 7lr P X S Campaign ' "*» ! " The Jews 
an eflort to defend Jerusalem; but this city he also en- 
tered, and saw the grand mystery of an irapious nation laid 
open as lt were under a goldeQ gky „ 

me gmiis arcanum patens, sub aureo uti coelo." "Pomnev 
hiraselt entered the Sanctum -Sanctorum and saw in ft 

ImZl * m V 7"*' C ° Vered W " h a Vail embroidered 
with gold, says the learned scholar Graevius ; and Tacitus 

he most accurate of all the Roman historians, says that on 

nd 7tT : 0t j6rUSalem b >' the Koma » -™ y. 

the Tew ' V 7 t6mpIe WM f ° Und a "™ '-kas 

hem 7th aS U G ° d ' ° Ut ° f ^ atitade for sh °™g 

them m the wilderness where water could be found The 

desert ammals can smell water at great distances, but man 
nas no such power of scent. 

In adding to the persecution of the « Christians" by 
Nero Pac.tus says: "They were the followers of one 
Chi istus, who was put to death in Jerusalem as a criminal » 
lh,s passage was long considered an interpellation, but is 
now generally regarded by scholars as genuine. It is not 
on y conhrmatory of Christ's alleged existence in person 
but the context shows the despicable character of the people' 



11 



among whom he lived arid by whom he was murdered. In 
providing schools, hospitals, nurses, and institutions to 
ameliorate the condition of the ignorant, the sick, and the 
poor, the Catholics lead the world. If you are ever 
f wounded or ill in an American city where you are a stranger, 
go to a Catholic hospital and you will be nursed as intelli- 
gently and tenderly as if in your own family. The chari- 
ties of the Catholic Church have a more practical bearing 
than those of the Protestants, and are on a much larger and 
more liberal scale. The average Protestant churchman, 
when he kills a beef is willing for charity's sake to present 
the horns and hoofs to the poor. The average Catholic 
will donate some more palatable part of the carcass. Yet 
my fault to find with all churches is failure to make good 
their professions of charity as a rule. Professing Christians 
in any large city in this country do not give as much in 
charity as men of the world. I do not think I overstate 
the case when I say if churches did their duty there would 
be no almshouses kept by the State and supported by taxa- 
tion in this rich land of ours, where more is produced than 
we can consume. I admire the Jews in this regard. They 
take the best of care of their own sick and needy. I have 
traveled much and am a close observer, but I have never 
seen a Jew or Jewess who was a pauper, a beggar, or a 
prostitute. Of course there must be some, but I have never 
happened to see one. My observation too has been that 
the poorer classes in this country are more charitable and 
humane than the rich. I had a singular experience show- 
ing this three years ago. I was passing along the* street 
here when I met a young lady, a very devout Catholic, whose 
brothers were friends of mine, but with her my acquaintance 
had not passed beyond formal introduction and salutation. 
She stopped, and to my surprise said she had a favor to ask 
of me, and feared I would find it very unpleasant to 
grant her wishes. I told her it always gave me pleasure to do 
an act of kindness. She then said, "A poor old Irish woman 



12 



died in the almshouse yesterday. Her body is on its way to 
the church in the hearse, with no one but the driver and one 
friend in attendance. I have walked the streets for an 
hour to find some friend who will go to the church with 
me and assist in taking the body in for funeral rites. Will 
you go there and await me while I try to find some one* 
else ?" I told her certainly I would. I went at once to 
the church, the same building where I had heard Charles 
Dickens read when he was last in this country. There was 
a delay, caused by refusal of a priest to permit the corpse 
to enter the church unless first convinced the deceased had 
received absolution. This was done, and I helped carry 
the poor old woman's remains into the darkened church, 
lit by the candles on the altar. The lady remarked 
that as I might not like to witness a Catholic funeral ser- 
vice she would have me a chair placed in the lobby. I 
told her that as a curiosity to me I would like to see it; 
that all churches were alike to me, and that I had no re- 
ligion except to follow the - golden rule" as faithfully as 
the circumstances of life permitted. I took mv seat in an 
audience of not more than a dozen people in a very laro-e 
building, and the priest began to read the service for the 
dead in a sing-song tone and wretchedly-pronounced Latin 
sprinkling now and then from a little silver urn what they 
call - holy water" on the coffin with what looked to me 
like a varnish-brush. Soon over, I aided to replace the 
coffin in the hearse, when a stranger, who had done like- 
wise, turned to me and said, - 1 thank you, sir, for your 
kindness. That dead woman was a Catholic; so am I. 
She was my nurse when I was a child and more prosperous 
m family than now. I am nothing but a poor gambler in 
occupation. I saw that she wanted for nothing in her last 
illness. I bought the coffin she is in, a lot in the cemetery 
for her, and a head-stone for her grave. I have tried to 1 
put her away as decently as my means permitted." As I 
stood there, in the very heart of this city, saw that gambler 



13 



mount to the driver's side of the hearse containing the 
remains of the pauper, saw them drive away, with no 
vehicle following except that of my Catholic lady acquaint- 
ance, who is rich, and was acting from sense of duty, not 
even knowing the dead woman except as she met her in 
visits to the sick at the poor-house, I thought of Hood's 
line in the " Bridge of Sighs" : 

k 'Alas ! for the rarity of Christian charity under the sun !" 

All the supply on hand here at that time seemed con- 
fined to the noble-hearted Catholic woman, the professional 
gambler, and myself, a man of the world without religious 
preferences or pretensions, except, like "Abou Ben Adhem," 
to live and die "as one who loved his fellow men." 

I read with much interest your citicism on my friend, 
Kobert Ingersoll. You do not understand him, and un- 
wittingly do him injustice. I know him well, I may say 
intimately. I have been in his law office hundreds of times. 
We have been associated in important legal business. "We 
were thrown together in Ohio and New York, where, in 
the last Presidential campaign, each in his sphere, we were 
doing battle for the cause of the Republican party. I have 
been a welcome guest under his roof, and have witnessed 
almost with envy the content and happiness of his pure 
domestic life. I stood near him when he read the beauti- 
ful oration over the dead body of his brother ; was by him 
when we laid that brother in the tomb. Two scenes oc- 
curred then which would have moistened the eyes of 
the most stoical. As Clarke IngersolPs body was being 
placed in his grave, a young lady perfectly wild in the 
agony of her grief at the loss of her best friend turned 
upon Robert Ingersoll and upbraided him because he 
would not open the coffin and permit her once more to 
look upon the features of her hallowed dead. The father 
of this almost heartbroken young woman had died in battle 
for his country and our Union on the blood-stained field of 
Shiloh. Clarke Ingersoll had, to the best of his ability, 



14 



tried to supply to the poor child the want created by 
the death of her father and his friend. As we walked 
away in the rain I can recall as of yesterday the touching 
pathos with which he said: "I have done ray last duty to 
my brother. Being the elder of the two, I had reason to 
expect that he would have had devolve on him for me the 
task I have just performed. That was the understanding 
between us." Just as he said this to me, a woman near 
us, with a fearful shriek, threw herself, face foremost, in 
the stone-paved gutter of the cemetery roadway. We 
picked her up, and she proved to be a "poor colored girl 
who, for years, had been a servant in Clarke Ingersoll's 
family, and who loved him as if he had been her father. 
Men who can inspire affection like this are not bad men. 
You greatly err when you say - that he hates government 
of every kind, he hates morals, he hates man, and he hates 
religion." Oh, no ! He has not time to hate anything but 
wrong. He is the Martin Luther of this day. He is doing 
great good in teaching people to think for themselves. 
Agassiz said the mission of Humboldt's long and useful 
life was to free the human mind from the influence of 
Jewish superstitions. So it is with Beecher and Ingersoll. 
You can enlighten Christianity and rid it of many non- 
essentials, but no human agency can destroy it. To have 
faith in God and love for mankind is the only doctrine 
Christ ever taught. All his system is based on this. Pro- 
foundly believing it the only correct principle for man's 
guidance, I am in that broad sense a Christian, regarding 
all non-essentials and ritualistic forms as mere aids for 
business use in controlling and teaching masses of people. 
I am a firm believer in the truth that intelligence requires, 
yea, demands, our recognition of a great first cause and 
love for humanity; and I am as devout a Christian, in the 
true meaning of the word, as any man who ever stood in 
pulpit or bent his knees in prayer. Christ's faith is homo- 
geneous with the physical, mental, and moral structure of 



15 



the Anglo-Saxon and his ancestors. Bone of his bone, 
flesh of his flesh, you can no more eradicate it than you 
can remove the iron from his blood, or the lime from his 
bones. As long as the flags of United Germany, of Great 
Britain, and our United States float in the morning air 
and are kissed by the evening breeze, Christianity will exist 
with brave defenders. The Eichards of "lion heart" are 
not all dead. Born of our race, it will only die when the 
race dies. While slaves to our kinsmen in Egypt the 
Jews picked up shreds of our faith, just as the African and 
Indian have done on this continent, I do not believe, as 
I said before, that there was Jewish blood in Christ's veins. 
There was nothing Semitic in his character or his teach- 
ings ; that he was deeply learned in Buddhism and the 
Platonic philosophy, the Lord's prayer and the "Sermon 
on the Mount" prove indisputably. Buckle was right 
when he said that "sermon" contained all the morality 
man's nature was endowed to receive. It has never been 
improved upon; it never can be. Perfect it came from its 
author's lips ; perfect it will remain while our globe re- 
volves on its axis and keeps its silent flight through space. 

But enough of these thoughts, my dear friend, lest per- 
chance I weary you. Though far from my home and my 
friends, as each day I walk the streets of this cosmopolitan 
city I return in mind to the scenes of my childhood and 
hold sweet converse with the companions of my youth. 

In 1811, when he was a young man twenty-seven years 
of age, my father located in our town, and for forty-live 
years after, though a poor Southern boy, born in North 
Carolina, brought into Kentucky on horseback, a babe in 
his mother's lap, with no means for education in early youth, 
self-taught, he led among our people an active, industrious 
life, serving them honestly in many places of public trust, and 
discharging all the duties of his station with fidelity to his 
fellow-men. He died as he lived, a brave, quiet, unassum- 
ing citizen — his mind unclouded with superstition and unter- 



16 



rifled by his approach to the grave. My mother saw the 
light of day eighty years ago, near our town, in a house 
still standing, which is older than the political existence of 
our State, and built by her father's hands, who laid aside 
his rifle and his sabre for the peaceful task of the husband- 
man,— a woman endowed by nature with rare mental and 
moral gifts. With few library facilities, she was a favorite 
pupil of Joshua Fry. Under his instruction she became 
an accomplished scholar and tine grammarian. Placed by 
marriage at the head of my father's home, she managed 
the domestic affairs of the largest and wealthiest household 
any one ever had in our county with the industrious frugal 
care of a model American house-keeper— did her duty to 
her husband, her children, her neighbors, and the nearly 
one hundred poor slaves, who always found in her deep 
sympathy for their unfortunate condition in life; a friend 
and a humanitarian, always engaged in some benevolent 
work, I cannot recall the time when she was not educat- 
ing some poor child, or relieving the wants of those in 
need; a devoted Christian, she found in her Bible and her 
copy of Burns' and Campbell's poems abundant solace from 
her hours of toil; proud, without vanity; high-spirited, yet 
gentle and just, her influence was for good on all with 
whom she came in contact. It was at this season of the 
year the beauty and charity of her life shone more brightly 
forth. As the anniversary of the birth-day of Christ ap- 
proached she put forth all the energies and resources of 
her fine mind to make it a day of happiness to others, find- 
ing in that act of creating happiness for others the highest 
happiness earth could give to her. She was reverent, and 
in her broad grasp of mind realized, that whether Christ 
was a God, a demi-god, or a man, he had done more for 
mankind than all the presidents, emperors, kings, poten- - 
tates, and soldiers who have lived since or before Caesar 
rode at the head of the Roman legions. To her I owe my 
unassuming manners, treating president or newsboy with 



17 



equal civility; and, like a true Republican, firmly believ- 
ing with Jefferson that all men have equal rights; are born 
with them, that society should maintain them. The proc- 
ess of generation is the same, whether at Balmoral or Wind- 
sor Castle, an heir to England's throne is begotten, or the 
Gypsy parents of John Bunyan create him beneath a 
hedgerow, as was the fact. These impressions have always 
driven intolerant thoughts on all social problems from my 
mind, and I am happy in that thought. Some of my best 
friends and most genial companions were soldiers of the 
Confederacy, whose families I aided during the war, and 
in the poverty which its losses caused. When our good 
friend, Will Cooley, died, I stood with uncovered head by 
the grave of that gallant Confederate soldier, appreciating 
as I did his fidelity to his friends, his faith to his convic- 
tions, his truth to humanity. As I heard the clods rattle 
on his coffin my eyes rested on the monument of my family 
burial spot, where my parents, my brother, my sister, my 
nephew, and my niece are laid away in their narrow 
homes, and involuntarily, as I thought of how faithful as a 
soldier, true as a friend, and upright as a man Cooley had 
always been, the dying words of Gen. Taylor came into 
my mind. They have alwavs impressed me greatly. Mr. 
Fill more, on July 10, 1850, in officially informing Con- 
gress of Gen. Taylor's death, said: "Among his last words 
were these, which he uttered with emphatic distinctive- 
ness: 'I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. 
My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.'" 

These noble words would make a fitting epitaph for poor 
Cooley's monument. Peace to his ashes! If there be life 
beyond the grave, of which the dead are conscious, he 
will not suffer. Did you ever read Caesar's speech, as given 
us by Sallust, made to the Roman Senate when passiug on 
the question of what punishment should be inflicted on the 
Cataline conspirators ? He opposed the death penalty as 
being no punishment at all, and said : " We may say, what 
3 



18 



is indeed the truth, that in trouble and distress death is a 
relief from suffering, and not a torment; that it puts an 
end to all human woes; and that beyond it there is no 
place either for sorrow or joy." Caesar probably never 
saw or heard of what we call the. Book of Job, the most 
intellectual and philosophical essay or dialogue to be found 
in the Bible. Yet how similar is this thought or belief to 
that of the unknown author of Job, where, in chapter 7 
(seven), verses 9-10, he says: "As the cloud is consumed 
and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave 
shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his 
house, neither shall his place know him any more." As 
lawyer, orator, author, statesman, soldier, combined in one 
being, and alike great in all, Caesar stands without a peer in 
the history of man. How sad to think such a brain should 
perish— stricken his death-blow by his illegitimate son 
Brutus, begotten by Csesar, if Cicero is to'be believed, 
when Csesar was only fifteen years of age. Shakespeare, 
you remember, makes Antony say Brutus was " Csesar's 
angel." How beautifully the great historian Fronde draws 
the parallel between Christ and Caesar where, in his learned 
essay, he states : " Strange and startling resemblance between 
the fate of the founder of the kingdom of this world and of 
the founder of the kingdom not of this world, for which the 
first was a preparation. Each was denounced for making 
himself a king. Each was maligned as the friend of pub- 
licans and sinners. Each was betrayed by those whom he 
had loved and cared for. Each was put to death; and 
Caesar also was believed to have risen again and ascended 
into heaven and become a divine being." You remember 
of course the myth that the great comet which appeared 
about the time of Caesar's death was thought by the credu- 
lous to be his soul in Paradise. 

My family have been the friends of law and order, de- 
voted always to our Union and the safety of our Repub- 
lic; friends of education and of progress; generous to the 



11) 



poor and just to everybody. Surely it cannot be that, from 
any cause, fair and impartial justice may not be had in our 
county for my nephew. That is all I ask and what I have 
a right to expect. I deplore as much as any one the un- 
fortunate conditions that impelled him to take the life of a 
human beins: ; but nine men out of ten would have done as 

CD ' 

he did under like circumstances. I^one of his ancestry on 
either side ever wore " white feathers;" and while he fears 
110 man, he is very amiable, and generous to a fault. He 
did not habitually carry weapons, and, so far as I know, 
never owned a pistol in his life. He has many faults, of 
course. We all have. In most Latin grammars our chil- 
dren are taught the example "Humanum est errare" Show 
me a faultless man and I will show you a fool, or a charac- 
ter so negative and insipid that it makes one struggle 
whether to feel pity or contempt for such a being. The 
positive elements rule the world, in nature and social life 
alike. If they clash, whether in the lightning's stroke, the 
wars of mighty nations, or in private life, it is but a repe- 
tition of man's experience on earth. " There is nothing 
new under the sun." Have you read Sullivan & Gilbert's 
new play, "Iolanthe"? I send it to you. I quote now a 
passage very apropos to some of the thoughts I have indi- 
cated : 

"I often think it's comical 

How nature always does contrive 

That every boy and every gal 
That's born into the world alive 

Is either a little Liberal, 

Or else a little Conservative." 

George was thirteen years old when his grandmother 
died. I cannot believe the teachings of such a woman did 
not make a permanent impression on his boyish mind. I 
infer that from my own experience. As I float down Time's 
river and look back to the spot where she sank (I hope to 
rise again), I feel her influence more strongly than when she 



20 



was on earth an active, moving factor in the problem of 
my daily life. I hope you go to see George often. Make 
him read and talk history with you. I have no super- 
stition, but it seems a fatality has followed me and my 
friends since the war. Jim Mitchell, Will Glass, Bob 
Price, and your nephew, Lum Saunders, were all my school- 
mates. We were reared almost in sight of each other and 
bound together by many a tie. You knew these young 
men. All were kind-hearted, peaceful, law-abiding citizens ; 
yet, under circumstances almost indentical with George's 
case, each one in turn was driven to kill an enemy who 
pursued him, as George was pursued, with malicious intent. 
Two of these young men sleep their last sleep among the 
"forefathers of our village hamlet." The other two are 
industrious, worthy citizens. In past years I came near 
more than once being forced to place myself in the same- 
category of homicides, but avoided it with a forbearance I 
doubt if I could exercise again. One way to check homi- 
cide in our State is to make the punishment of any man 
who threatens the life of another just as severe, on proof 
of the fact, as if he had carried his threats into execution. 
Christ teaches that a man may commit adultery by thought 
Why not murder ? The Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled 
years ago that no man with threats against his life could 
be expected to go forever with the sword of Democles sus- 
pended over his head. 

It has been my observation that assassination, either from 
motives of revenge or plunder, is exceedingly rare in Ken- 
tucky, while homicides are very frequent. Yet in nine 
cases out of ten the most careful judicial investigations 
show that the dead men were the aggressors, and that in- 
stead of going to a jury or court for redress of wrongs, real 
or imaginary, they took the law into their own hands; 
first threatened and then assaulted somebody; and, as a 
practical result, accomplished nothing except to furnish a 
job for the grave-digger. 



21 



You are acquainted with the facts in the cases I have 
named, and likewise in the case of Major Terrill for killing 
Harvey Myers, and of Arnold for killing Little. You knew 
on both sides the actors in these tragedies, and can see 
how in every case the dead men did that, or feigned to do 
that, which amounts to the same thing — that made the one 
who killed them believe his own life was in peril. A man 
has but one life here below. No one has a right to assail 
it by thought, word, or act, except at his own peril. " Love 
thy God and thy neighbor." " On these two command- 
ments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22-40. 

What other could these men have done? You have 
spent the thoughtful hours of your life in the study of biog- 
raphy and history. Ought these unfortunates to have said 
with Hamlet : 

"Am I a coward ? Who calls me villain ? breaks my 
pate across? Plucks oft' my beard, and blows it in my 
face? Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the 
throat, as deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha! 
Why, I should take it; for it cannot be, but I am pigeon- 
liver'd and lack gall to make oppression bitter." Should 
each of them have said to himself that I " Must, like a 
whore, unpack my heart with words, and fall a cursing, like 
a very drab, a scullion." 

No one knows any better than you do that there is not a 
braver or more warlike population on the globe than is to 
be found in Kentucky. From the lakes to the gulf the 
blood of our people has reddened every important battle- 
ground. Like Job's war-horse, our people mock at fear, 
and smell "the battle afar oft', the thunder of the captains, 
and the shouting." This comes from the fact that outside 
of our grandmother Germany's dominions we are the purest 
Saxon province of undetiled lineage to be found anywhere. 
Yet we must quit killing each other. It is a shame to our- 
selves and a disgrace to our civilization. It will measur- 
ably cease when we can educate our young men to be for- 
bearing, to make no threats, to carry no concealed weapons, 



22 



to see if in the court-house a remedy for their wrongs may 
not be found before taking the law into their own "hands, 
bringing death, sorrow, and expense to themselves and 
their families. That was the pitiful fact in the case of the 
unfortunate young man George killed. On the attachment 
bonds, and the bond of the town marshal who levied ou 
his property, he had adequate legal redress for any wrong 
inflicted upon him. He preferred, however, to settle his 
own case, and it was settled and is now before a tribunal 
from which there is no appeal. A recent decision of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, when rightly under- 
stood and enforced in Kentucky, as it must and will be, 
will do great good in checking what seems almost a homi- 
cidal mania. The court ruled that: "In a trial for homi- 
cide, where the question whether the prisoner or the de- 
ceased commenced the encounter which resulted in death is 
in any manner of doubt, it is competent to prove threats of 
violence against the prisoner made by the deceased, though 
not brought to the knowledge of the prisoner" 

This ruling is contrary to the ancient and modern prac- 
tice in Kentucky; but it is the supreme law of the nation, 
anything in the "constitution or the laws of our State to 
the contrary notwithstanding." Any lawyer in Kentucky, 
who hereafter fails to assert this doctrine in behalf of his 
client, whose life and liberty are in his hands, is unworthy 
of employment, should be disbarred for betrayal of his 
trust, and not recognized by the gentlemen of the law. 

This departure from , ancient usage and the hide-bound 
tyrannical rulings of the common law, made at a time when 
our ancestors were semi-savages, is due to the thoughtful, 
progressive, practical intellect of Justice Samuel H. 
Miller of the Supreme Court, whose opinions will com- 
pare favorably with those of Marshall, Taney, Story, or 
Chase, and who is the greatest of American jurists alive. 
Every Kentuckian should be proud of him, for our State 
gave him birth and developed his manly, mental, and 



28 



physical characteristics. The tried and trusted friend of 
Lincoln, the greatest man who ever trod American soil, 
he is the embodiment of American's idea of an honest, 
faithful, industrious, intellectual citizen. If the Republi- 
cans do not force him from his present place and make 
him our next President "nolens volens," they are bigger 
fools than I think they are. The only way to check homi- 
cide in our State is to teach people not to provoke it. It 
is silly to suppose one man will kill another without cause 
or accident. I shall have nothing to do with George's 
case further than to give him legal advice, and to see that 
every right to which he is entitled as an American citizen 
is eared for and vindicated. This is my duty, and it will 
be manfully discharged, "though hell itself should gape 
and bid me hold my peace." I do not know of a more 
solemn, a more sacred task devolved on man or woman 
than to stand by aud aid kinsmen and friends in their 
hours of trouble and sorrow. People who won't do this 
are unworthy the name of humans; they encumber the 
earth, and the material of which they are composed would 
be more useful in the cesspool or upon the compost 
heap. 

Kingsley, in that remarkable book, " Hypatia," gives a 
historical fact so fully covering all my ideas of friendship 
and devotion people should feel, that I quote it here : "Wulf 
died as he had lived, a heathen. Placidia, who loved him 
well, as she loved all righteous and noble souls, had succeeded 
once in persuading him to accept baptism. Adolf him- 
self acted as one of his sponsors ; and the old warrior was 
in the act of stepping into the font, when he turned sud- 
denly to the bishop and asked, where were the souls of 
his heathen ancestors? 4 In hell,' replied the worthy pre- 
late. Wulf drew back from the font and threw his bear- 
skin cloak around him. He would prefer, he said, if 
Adolf had no objection, to go to his own people, and so 
he died unbaptized and went to his own place." 



24 



This place, if it exists anywhere, I feel assured is not 
one of punishment; for no God worthy the respect or wor- 
ship of any human being would punish such a man, whose 
very love and truth and courage were of godlike char- 
acter. 

Write me often. I am always glad to hear from you. 

Truly your friend, WM. BROWK 

Samuel McAfee Duncan, Esq. 

Nicholasville, Ky. 

P. S— By way of postscript I send you another little 
poem of my mother's. The "home" she alludes to is 
the old John Butler place, about two miles south of 
Mcholasville on the Danville pike, where Mr. Lacy lives, 
or did live. The house is a double-log cabin, such as they 
built in " old times " ; in that house she was born in 1802. 
The house is one of the oldest in our county, and well pre- 
served ; for many years, every since I can remember, it has 
been weatherboarded, and the logs my grandfather laid there 
are sound to this day. She prefaced this poem thus : 

" On Kevisiting the Peace of My Nativity, in Jessamine 
county, May 19th, 1831. 

" Hail, dearest scenes ! o'er which I've strayed 
In childhood's free and happy hour; 
Where oft with youthful friends I've played, * 
Unknown to Time's destructive power. 
• k Dear to my heart, as once the home 
Of those whose love I fondly claim ; 
Dear to my heart where'er I roam, 

Through time unchanging still the same. 
" Though years have passed since last we met ; 
Few happy days have reached my heart ; 
I view thee still with fond regret, 

And grieve that we were forced to part. 
14 Ah ! how my heart with rapture beats 
Whene'er thy rural shades I see, 
Or wander o'er thy loved retreats, 
Which once were all the world to me. 

4k Should fate relentless change my lot, 
And I in distant lands e'er roam. 
When here my name shall be forgot, 
I'll love thee still as 1 Home, sweet Home.' " 



